President Trump urged Congress on Friday to end the mandatory budget cuts that have held down defense spending, just a day after the Senate rejected a vote on the matter.
Trump, speaking to the Air Force at Joint Base Andrews, Md., said it is time to eliminate so-called sequestration because the service has dramatically cut its troop numbers and fighter aircraft since the 1990s and the military as a whole has spent years deployed in combat.
“That is why I am calling on Congress to end the defense sequester once and for all and to give our military the tools, training, equipment, and resources that our brave men and women in uniform so richly deserve, and that is happening,” he said.
The president’s latest criticism of the sequester came just a day after the Senate reached an impasse over bringing legislation to the floor for debate and vote that would have eliminated sequestration, which caused mandatory, across-the-board cuts to the defense and non-defense budgets if Congress does not adhere to spending caps.
The legislation was filed as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and supported by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, but was ultimately scuttled by Senate Democrats.
With sequestration still looming, neither Trump’s requested $639 billion defense budget nor the larger $700 billion NDAA crafted by McCain can pass without a deal in Congress to raise budget caps. Otherwise, the bills will trigger the deep sequester cuts.
